Life, Family, Yoga, Stuff

Daily Archives: January 24, 2009

I love ebay and we just made quite the haul. Lauren has a lot of toys. We were gifted an older Fisher Price Loving Family dollhouse when she was 5 or 6. It had no furniture, so I browsed thrift shops for stuff that would go with it. Of course, some was purchased brand new, but the majority of it came from the junk stores. We just unloaded all of it, for $244.98 and to think I was going to send this back with my mom to Florida for my neice! We did let her have the dollhouse, didn’t want to try and ship that sucker! Someone paid $51 for this camper, the tent, the bicycles and a couple of boats. So if you’re out at a garge sale or Goodwill, Fisher Price Loving Family, old or new is not a bad investment!

I used to sell a lot of dishes. I scoured flea markets and second hand shops for dishes with unique stamps on the back. I had a guide book I’d take with me. Though sometimes, you could just pick up a basic piece of china and make good money off it because someone out there had broken a piece or just simply wanted an extra. The second hand shops have since wised up. Goodwill in Ft. Myers actually has it’s own auction service now, as I’m sure lots of other Goodwill’s do too. When I finally sold off what I could sell, I got rid of what I could in the garage sale and took the rest back where I got them. It was fun while it lasted, to purchase a plate for a quarter and sell it for $10 or more.

My sister has recently jumped on the e-bay bandwagon as well. They are having financial difficulties and the thought of losing a beautiful home is not very pretty. Everything she owns in the way of clothing is J. Jill, Prada, Banana Republic, and brands that I’m sure I don’t know of. She’s doing really well with it and realizing that you really don’t need 37 pairs of shoes. I don’t have any high dollar clothing to resell, but I’m also not in a bad financial situation so at times, I’m thankful for my low grade and probably bad taste. I do trade a lot of my yoga stuff on e-bay as I get sick of wearing the same stuff all the time. I also find brands like Lululemon, Ebb & Flow or Be Present, none of which are available at stores in our areas. They still aren’t cheap, but 1/2 or a tad more of what you’d pay in the stores. Most of it comes to me new with tags!

The most fun my sister and I had on e-bay was selling off our childhood toys. We had a massive Dawn Doll collection that brought huge bucks! We also had these cool little dolls, that smelled good and were packaged in perfume bottles. I can’t remember what they were called. One of those alone, brought $80. We had lots of Barbie stuff and dealing Barbie can be fun if you know what to look for. I used to buy big lots of clothes at the junk stores or even on e-bay just because I recognized one piece in there that was worth bucks. One time, I bought a paper bag of Barbie clothes on ebay. Inside, was the original Pan American circa 1966 flight jacket for Barbie. I cleaned it and sold it online for $60.

Another great outfit I found complete was Barbie’s Lamb & Leather outfit, circa 1970. You have to be careful now as most of these outfits are being reproduced.

It was all white and it came to me totally trashed. One safe and good way to clean old fabrics of a lighter color is to soak them in Polident. Be sure to use a glass bowl, cold water, and one or two Polident tablets. Let them soak overnight. Rinse in cool water and let them dry flat on a towel. The results are amazing, crisp, clean color! I never pressed any of my older Barbies clothes for fear of disentegration, but steam will work well. I ended up receving $90 for this outift in 2001, complete minus the gloves!

You can use Polident for all different colors as well. Just be sure to do a batch of red by itself, blue by itself, do not mix colors!

I haven’t sold any Barbie stuff for a very long time. I do have a wonderful old Barbie case, complete with a couple of vintage dolls and a bunch of the theater costumes, a wedding dress, an original bathing suit and a bunch of accessories. I scored most of that on ebay as well, got sidetracked and have never sold it. OK. Maybe I got a bit attached to that, but it’s probably time for it to go.

The holidays, yep that’s when I’ll get it outta here!

The weirdest thing I ever sold was an old pair of tennis shoes. Someone made a joke to me that I should put them on ebay, in the adult section. The adult section? Ebay has an adult section? Why yes, yes they do. I got a secondary ebay identity and I started the auction out of curiosity. I sold them, for $52 and the guy also asked me if I would throw in a pair of socks, that were not washed. I got creeped out but I did it and mailed them with no return address.

Someone I know, knows someone that’s living in Japan. She puts her underwear in vending machines there. Really, not kidding. She sells them for around $60 U.S. What in the hell is up with that?

I know. You’re probably wondering what kind of people I know……….and I just mentioned Fisher Price and underwear in vending machines in the same post…….

Awhile back, I posted about a book my mom gave me to read called Will to Murder. It’s a true story that took place at the Glensheen mansion in Duluth, MN.

I’m just about to finish it, finally! If you like murder mysteries (true ones especially) this is a must read. This has got to be one of the most detailed books I’ve read in quite awhile. I’m hoping to have it finished this weekend so I can mail it to my grandma (who resides in Duluth, MN) when I take all of my e-bay packages to the post office on Monday!

There’s no end to what the main character in this book will do to get what she wants!